Author: Owen Gray

There are lots of issues on the agenda this time around. But, Bob Hepburn writes, there’s one issue none of the leaders will touch: Missing will be plans on how to address what is arguably the most critical issue of all — our increasingly fractured nation. It’s the big election

Pundits are suggesting that this election will be won or lost in Ontario — primarily because Ontario is Canada’s most populous province. When politicians come looking for votes here, Tom Walkom writes, they need to remember that Ontarians are Red Tories — and they have been for a long time:

Andrew Scheer is hoping that no one will use the F-word — Ford — during the election campaign. Rob Benzie writes: While the premier’s Progressive Conservatives won 76 of Ontario’s 124 provincial ridings in last year’s election, Scheer’s federal Conservatives fear he could hurt them where they need to win

The election has arrived. And, Susan Delacourt writes, it will be all about our children: Children can’t vote in this election, but they will loom large in the electoral conversation of all parties over the next six weeks. Kids are evoked by politicians when they want to talk about the

It’s time, Chris Hedges writes, to take the sugar coating off capitalism: Capitalists seek to maximize profits and reduce the cost of labor. This sums up capitalism at its core. It is defined by these immutable objectives. It is not about democracy. It is not, as has been claimed, about

Over the weekend, Donald Trump blew up a meeting between the United States and the Taliban. The meeting was supposed to take place at Camp David. Max Boot writes: It’s appalling that Trump would have even considered hosting Taliban leaders just days before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks plotted

Michael Harris writes that the upcoming election could be a replay of the 2016 American election: This election may boil down to which leading candidate most confirms voters’ worst impressions of him. First, ponder a recent Angus Reid poll, reported in the Globe and Mail, that indicates Trudeau and Scheer

All signs are pointing to a knock down drag out election. Chantal Hebert writes: Based on Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer’s performances over the course of back-to-back sessions with the Toronto Star’s editorial board this week, both are reasonably well prepped for what is expected to be a take-no-prisoners battle.

David Suzuki has been sounding the alarm on climate change for thirty years. And now, he writes, we’re almost out of time: Last October, hundreds of the world’s top climate scientists, representing almost every nation, gave us another, even more dire warning: We only have about 12 years to reduce

The writ hasn’t dropped yet. But the signs are not good. It’s going to get nasty. Susan Delacourt writes: Canada is no stranger to intense election campaigns, with passions running high on all sides, and even the occasional, infamous political incidents — tomatoes thrown at parades, scuffles in the audience.

There is a revolution going on in Britain. Jonathan Freedland writes: When some of the best-known Conservative figures of the last half-century are booted out of their party, when a new prime minister loses his first parliamentary vote and his governing majority on the same day, when historians are referring

When it comes to education, Doug Ford firmly believes in going back to the basics. Martin Regg Cohn writes: The premier is rebranding — by banning cellphones, banishing discovery math and abandoning an anti-sex-ed crusade he couldn’t sustain. Embarrassed by his shameless sex-ed cock-up and awkward climbdown, Ford is distracting

On this Labour Day, Paul Willcocks takes a look at the state of labour in Canada. His conclusion is that we have nothing to cheer about: And over the last five decades, work has been getting worse. Canadians have seen basic job security and benefits stripped away, while more and

Jeremy Corbin writes in The Guardian that the British people must make the final decision on Brexit. Boris Johnson promised Britons a deal on Brexit. He has since changed his mind. He changes his mind a lot: Johnson and fellow Conservatives who campaigned for Leave in 2016 promised people that

Linda McQuaig argues that it’s time to establish a wealth tax in Canada. That’s what Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are proposing south of the border: Prominent U.S. Democratic presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are campaigning on taxing the super-rich, with Warren calling for a two per cent

The Ford government has decided that the way Ontario students are taught math is FUBAR. And their solution is GBTTB — Go Back To The Basics. Martin Regg Cohn writes: Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) test results show less than half of Grade 6 students (48 per cent) met

Here’s a scary thought: Boris Johnson was inspired by Stephen Harper. Susan Delacourt is suggesting that possibility: Johnson is putting parliamentary sittings on ice until Oct. 14, just shortly before Britain is due to pull out of the European Union in what is shaping up to be a no-deal Brexit.

The problem in the United States these days, Chris Hedges writes, is that both sides have descended into moral crusades: The continued inability of America’s liberal democratic establishment to address the ills besetting the country—climate change, unregulated global capitalism, mounting social inequality, a bloated military, endless foreign wars, out-of-control deficits

Having announced earlier cuts to teaching jobs and course options, last week — two weeks before the start of school — Doug Ford announced that those cuts would not take place this year. His back tracking leaves school boards in chaos. This week, having repealed Kathleen Wynne’s revised sex education

Justin Trudeau is brandishing — rhetorically, at least — his progressive credentials. His predecessors would not have lurched this far to the left. Chantal Hebert writes: None of Trudeau’s predecessors embraced LGBTQ and abortion rights in the way he does. None described themselves as proactive feminists. Chrétien and his immediate